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A Creator of Captain America, Fighting On

Joe Simon at home with his Last Supper canvas of Captain America and other heroes, painted after he heard that the character he helped create might die.Credit
Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times

“Living legend” is how Joe Simon is categorized on the list of special guests appearing at the New York Comic Con at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center this weekend. Mr. Simon, 94, has a different take on it. “I call it the old-geezer table,” he said during a recent interview at his Midtown Manhattan apartment.

Mr. Simon will take part in the “Legends Behind the Comic Books” panel at 3 p.m. on Friday, one of numerous events planned at the convention, a three-day celebration of all things comics.

Mr. Simon earned the “legend” title with his partner Jack Kirby by creating Captain America, the superhero who arrived in December 1940, just in time to play a patriotic foil to the Axis powers. The cover of the first issue even has the good captain socking Hitler in the jaw.

For Mr. Simon and Mr. Kirby, though, the biggest blow came when they were dismissed from the series, which had been selling a million copies a month, in a dispute over royalties. The team moved to Detective Comics (today DC Comics), but Captain America stayed with Timely, the forerunner of Marvel Comics.

It’s a tale worthy of its own comic (and one of many inspirations for Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”): On the frontier of a new industry, writers and artists creating scores of characters, but publishers profiting from them.

These days creators have learned from the past by self-publishing or otherwise securing the rights to their progeny. But some of the founding fathers of American superheroes are still seeking justice. Just last month a federal judge ruled that the heirs of Jerry Siegel, a creator of Superman, were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright of the character. Time Warner, which owns DC Comics, would retain the international rights.

“That’s great,” the bespectacled Mr. Simon said. “Jerry Siegel started it,” he added, referring to the effort by Mr. Siegel’s wife and daughter in 1997 to secure the copyright to Superman. (Under a 1976 law, heirs can recover the rights to their relatives’ creations under certain circumstances. Mr. Siegel died in 1996 without major compensation for his character.) That family’s stand inspired Mr. Simon’s own claim to Captain America in 1999.

“We always felt ‘we wuz robbed,’ as Joe Jacobs, the boxing promoter, used to say,” Mr. Simon said of his dispute over the ownership of Captain America, which he settled out of court with Marvel in 2003. He said his royalties for merchandising and licensing use of the hero now help pay his legal bills from the case.

But copyright was not on Mr. Simon’s mind when he was conceiving Captain America. He didn’t even begin with the hero. “Villains were the whole thing,” he said. And there was no better foil than Hitler. Who better to take him on than a supersoldier draped in the American flag?

The art for the series also broke the mold. “Kirby started this idea of elastic art, action and double-page spreads,” Mr. Simon said. “It was a whole new package.” But it was not to last. The pair felt that they were being cheated on royalties by their publisher, Martin Goodman. Frustrated, the team began negotiations to move to Detective Comics. When Mr. Goodman found out, Mr. Simon and Mr. Kirby were fired, but only after they had finished issue No. 10 of Captain America Comics.

At Detective, the two would create the Guardian, Manhunter and more. For other companies they would create the Fly and Fighting American. Of his ideas, Mr. Simon said, “One of them would fail, another would fail, and eventually you got one that was successful.”

Mr. Simon is surprised by the interest in him (including recent book offers from Rizzoli and Abrams) and the continued vitality of comic-book characters. But, he said, he has always been concerned about getting more money for the talent.

“People in comic books have a very sad history in dealing with their creative people,” he said.

Todd McFarlane, 47, who in 1992 helped found Image Comics, agreed. “I read the stories of Joe Simon,” he said. “I read the stories of Jack Kirby. I read the stories of all those guys in the ’40s, ’50s and even the ’60s. I kept coming across this repetitive story: the creative guy got the short end of the stick.”

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Mr. McFarlane’s artwork on Spider-Man made him a superstar. His interpretation of the character — lankier physique; larger eyes on the mask; and a kinetic, three-dimensional feel to his webs — returned the comic to top-selling status. But Spider-Man’s newfound appeal brought editorial control and notes.

“I was sitting at the top of the charts, and all of a sudden I wasn’t good enough,” Mr. McFarlane said of the requests that he redraw panels or rethink layouts.

“If it was about money, I would’ve stayed there,” he said. “But I had to move on.”

Mr. McFarlane and six other artists formed Image Comics to take control of their own and their characters’ destinies. “All we ever wanted was a small voice in the conversations with editorial,” he said. Spawn, a hero who makes a pact with the Devil, was created when Mr. McFarlane was in high school. The character was an immediate success and went on to be featured in toys, a film and an animated series on HBO. Today Mr. McFarlane has companies that deal with toy design and manufacturing, video games, film and video productions and more.

With so much on his plate, he has not spent much time drawing comics. That’s soon to change. Haunt, a new series about a priest possessed by the ghost of his brother, a secret agent, will be introduced this summer. It is written by Robert Kirkman, owner and creator of the two series Invincible and The Walking Dead. Mr. McFarlane will illustrate the covers, oversee layouts and ink pages.

Mr. Simon may not be involved in monthly comics, but he’s still drawing. In September 2001 he recreated the cover of Captain America Comics No. 1, but substituted Osama bin Laden for Hitler. “I did it out of anger,” he said. “Adolf got his. Osama will too.”

When he heard from friends at Marvel that Captain America might be murdered in 2007, Mr. Simon grabbed his brush. The result was a “Last Supper” painting of the captain and 12 fellow champions at a table surrounded by junk food.

Mr. Simon said he was worried about the direction the hero — well, his replacement — has taken. “The new costume, with the pistol and knife, and the old shield design going down to his privates, that’s not Captain America,” he said. Mr. Simon said he feared that someone would “shoot up a campus with pistols,” claiming he was inspired by the character.

Comics may still cause Mr. Simon agitation, but they also introduced him to his wife, Harriet, who was a secretary at Harvey Comics. (She died in 1972.) “I met her when I came from the war in my military outfit,” he said. She asked him to pull up his pant legs. He dutifully agreed. “What did you want to see?” he asked.

“ ‘I won’t go out with a guy with pasty white legs,’ ” he recalled as her response. “I didn’t ask her if I passed the test, but we went out.” They were married for 25 years.

Correction: April 24, 2008

An article on April 16 about Joe Simon, who helped create Captain America and appeared at the New York Comic Con last weekend, misattributed a character to him and his partner, Jack Kirby. The Sandman was first written and drawn by Gardner Fox and Bert Christman  not by Mr. Simon and Mr. Kirby, who took it over later.

The New York Comic Con runs Friday through Sunday at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 655 West 34th Street, Manhattan; nycomiccon.com.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page E1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Creator Of Captain America, Fighting On. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe